How universal are reserve design rules? A test using butterflies and their life history traits

Abstract

We used butterfly species lists available for a set of 125 Czech Republic National Nature Reserves and Monuments, the highest small-sized conservation category in the country encompassing practically all biotope types existing in central Europe, to test the validity of generally agreed 'reserve design rules' using multivariate ordination analyses. Further, we used ordination analysis of butterfly life history traits to seek for biological mechanisms responsible for butterfly community responses to essentially geometric reserves characteristics. Reserve area, relative perimeter, within reserve habitat heterogeneity, and surrounding landscape compositional and configurational heterogeneity all affected the composition of butterfly assemblages after controlling for effects of geographical position and prevailing biotope type. Species inclining towards large reserves displayed low mobility and high local population density, probably because they require large habitat areas to maintain self-sustaining populations; such species tend to have restricted distribution in the country and threatened status. Reserves with relatively long boundaries hosted species with high mobility, broad trophic range and long adult period; faunas of such reserves contain high proportions of widespread generalists. Species with narrow trophic ranges inclined towards reserves containing diverse habitats, probably due to requirements for high floristic diversity. Species with short adult flight, low generations number and overwintering in early stages inclined towards reserves situated amidst diverse landscapes, perhaps because such species require finely-grained mosaics for metapopulation dynamics. Commonly agreed reserve design rules thus hold for Central European butterflies, but different design characteristics are important for individual species, depending on their life histories.

Network theory and metapopulation persistence: incorporating node self‐connections

“…; Hastings & Botsford ; Bartonova et al . ). In the study of food‐web networks, node self‐connections were not acknowledged until recently (Krause et al .…”

“…; Bartonova et al . ), and this spatial heterogeneity could have implications for the relationship between network metrics and metapopulation persistence. To explore this, we conducted preliminary simulations by varying fecundity randomly among patches in our metapopulation model (see Appendix ).…”

“…; Bartonova et al . ). In other disciplines where the network approach is employed, such as transportation systems, the connection of a node with itself is often not meaningful (e.g.…”

“…; Bartonova et al . ). Dispersal among urban bird populations in Portland, for example, allowed self‐sustaining populations to rescue non‐self‐sustaining groups, thus enhancing overall metapopulation persistence (Smith et al .…”

Anthropogenic impacts in protected areas: assessing the efficiency of conservation efforts using Mediterranean ant communities

“…Over the last decades, the creation of new PAs has become a requirement imposed on the signatories of the most important conservation conventions in the world, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2008), the European Union Biodiversity Action Plan (EC, 2006), and the National Ecological Observatory Network (Keller et al, 2008). At the same time, research focusing on the design, management, and ecological integrity of PAs has been conducted (Gaston et al, 2008; Andrello et al, 2015; Bartonova et al, 2016). Although the number of studies that have tested the effectiveness of PAs in sustaining biodiversity is still limited (Rodrigues et al, 2004; Geldmann et al, 2013), some recent work suggests that PAs may not always allow a satisfactory level of conservation to be reached, at least in the case of some taxa (Gaston et al, 2008; Rayner et al, 2014; Jenkins et al, 2015a; but see Brown et al, 2015).…”